Tube strike: Talks aimed at solving London Underground strikes to be held

 
Gridlock: Traffic at Trafalgar Square as people took to cars and buses to avoid the Tube strike
6 February 2014

Millions of Londoners battled to work by bus, bike or on foot today during the first Tube workers’ strike in four years.

Commuters faced huge delays as the 48-hour strike by the RMT and TSSA unions reduced the capacity of the Tube, which normally carries four million passengers, to 35 per cent. Eighty stations were shut and three lines out of action. Most of the remainder ran a skeleton service.

In Pictures: Tube strike (February 2014)

1/62

Several mainline railway stations were closed because of overcrowding during the morning peak. Stratford, Paddington, London Bridge and Elephant & Castle bore the brunt. Police turned away thousands from locked Tube stations and marshalled the crowds as they squeezed on to buses.

With heavy rain and gales forecast, the commuter misery was set to continue tomorrow with no resolution in sight to the walkout over Tube ticket office closures and job losses.

Mayor Boris Johnson said: “We’ve just got to get through this, I’m afraid. This is vital if we’re going to reform our ticket offices, upgrade our systems and use investment to modernise our Tube.”

This image from Stratford station was posted on Twitter by @djdegiorgio with the caption: Stratford Station was meant to open at 7 #bedlam #tfl

New laws could ban all-out strikes on the London Underground in future, Tory sources said today. The Government is looking “very, closely” at such proposals.

A Tory source said it was being considered for the next manifesto, along with other proposals such as rules to ensure a strike is backed in a ballot by more than half the workforce.

PA

As the strike took effect, there was chaos at Paddington, with the closure of the Tube station. Witnesses described a “sea of bodies” at Stratford — which coped with the pressure of the Olympics — but was shut because of severe overcrowding when staff failed to turn up for work on the DLR.

Further staff shortages on the DLR caused disruption at Canning Town and West Ham, with City-bound passengers seeking an alternative to the Central line left stranded.

@SanLarsson

London Bridge and Elephant & Castle were also reported shut. At Waterloo, hundreds of thousands of passengers disembarked from national rail and walked to work. There were ugly scenes as commuters wrestled one another for Boris bikes.

Eighty stations closed and many Tube services failed to run as advertised at 7am. There was a reduced or “special service” on all lines with the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines shut. The central London sections of the Central and Piccadilly lines were also closed.

TSSA union chief Manuel Cortes tweeted: “Is after 7 and hardly a train is running as Boris’s phantom scab army fails to show up — fantasist”.

Glenn Copus

The morning rush started hours earlier on the roads, with the worst queues in years on the westbound A40 in Marleybone Road.

On the M4, A4 and M40, traffic into London was stacked up to the M25 and there was severe congestion on the M11 and A13.

Read More

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in